The End of Science
Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age
By John Horgan. Abacus. 324 pages. £8.99
ISBN 0 349 10926 5
The role of science within general culture is an issue which continues to generate an atmosphere of conflict.
For optimists, science and technology still provide the main hope for the improvement of the dignity of humanity; for pessimists, they are leading us directly to the apocalypse. For post-modernity's more radical thinkers, scientific theories are mainly social constructs, whose 'truthfulness' does not extend beyond particular scholarly communities; for those who remain rooted in modernity, science represents the only valid path to complete knowledge of all phenomena, and a dualism between science and the rest of culture is asserted.
